


From Inside the Cage

by Beginning_Returner



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Cold War Hetalia, DDR, Don't copy to another site, Historical Hetalia, In which I write gay Gilbo once again, M/M, Wow it's like I can write nothing else, have fun folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 17:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18266246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beginning_Returner/pseuds/Beginning_Returner
Summary: Existence is a subtle poison in East Germany.





	From Inside the Cage

One grey morning early in 1968, Gilbert awoke to the sound of a knock on his door. 

Was it because he'd somehow overslept and was late to work? No, it was the weekend.

Was it the Apparat come to fetch him again? No, because they never knocked.

Slowly, he straightened himself and put his feet down on the cold floor. Thankfully, the woollen socks he was wearing attenuated the chill somewhat. Some folk at the office had socks made by their Mutti back home, but these he'd knit himself. Navy blue, the best shade he could get in the store. They'd fade into a colour more fitting to him eventually.

Gilbert walked to the closet and got out a dressing gown. It wouldn't do to appear in nightclothes if this was the landlady come to complain- for an ultra-conservative shrew like her, even the sight of pajamas could hold implications of disprespect.

The knock sounded again, more hesitant this time. "Coming," said Gilbert. He tied the sash on the gown and opened the door.

Standing on the threshold was neither a state employee, a secret agent, or even the landlady. Instead, the sight that awaited the Nation formerly known as Prussia was that of a teenage girl, nervously clutching a package wrapped in brown paper.

Bemused, Gilbert rubbed his face and stared at her. "And what would your business be today, Fräulein?"

The girl pinkened slightly but was quick to respond. "I am here today due to my great-grandfather's will, Comrade."

"Funny. I'm not exactly the sort of person whom people would remember in their wills."

"Yes. The matter is quite unusual, but I will explain if you will allow me to, Comrade."

"Then come inside already, it might be slightly less colder than the hallway in here."

She smiled, but still looked hesitant.

"Believe me, Fräulein, even if I had any designs on you (which I don't), it'd be easy enough to scream blue bloody murder and bring the entire house down on me, the walls are paper thin around here."

With that, her smile broadened and she stepped gladly over the threshold.

 

* * *

 

Gilbert sat her down at the kitchen table, started a fire in the stove and boiled water for tea, or rather an infusion, since real China tea was a drink for the privileged. But Gilbert had been drying herbs ever since he could remember, and often preferred their taste to real tea anyway. He spooned out a mix of yarrow, camomile, and mint into the strainer and served it to her in his best cup, taking his usual stoneware mug for himself.

After they'd wordlessly drunk most of their first cup, he put his mug down and asked: "Now why don't you tell me what this is all about?"

"My name is Else. My great-grandfather Wolfgang died not too long ago, and when his will was read, it contained a single sentence referring to someone with your name." The tea was belatedly doing good work in warming their stomachs, but Else was still somewhat stiff in her manner. This was not surprising since she was likely unused to talking to strange men at length.

She pulled a piece of handwritten paper out of her coat pocket, smoothed it, and recited its words.

"Since there is no one else in the family that knows or has interest in knowing how to play it, I have decided to bequeath my flute to Gilbert Beilschmidt."

Everything before Gilbert's eyes went suddenly and violently blank. He was terribly glad he'd set his mug down earlier, else he'd have been liable to scald his lap.

"Now you see," continued the girl, blithely unaware of his momentary lapse of reason, "no one in the family really knew who this Gilbert Beilschmidt might be. But we made inquiries, and eventually found out that a person by your name did exist. And now, here I am! Mother and Father are sorry they couldn't come, they're always too busy with work."

Else laid the package she'd been carying down carefully on the table and slid it towards Gilbert.

"Did you know my great-grandfather?" she asked as he hesitantly began to unwrap it.

"I'm not sure." The brown packing paper was thick and well taped together, and he had to fetch a kitchen knife to slit it open in the end. Inside rested a worn leather case that had evidently seen many travails. Gilbert inhaled as though he were about to pull the trigger in a sniping operation and popped the catches.

And there it lay, dissasembled into its components, dull silver on worn velvet, a bona fide concert flute.

It was, of course, not Gilbert's own instrument. His real flute, the one made of ebony and ivory, was hidden deep and far away from here, along with a large metal box, once called a _cassette_ by the French, which held those letters, those beautiful, burning, incindiary letters and poems Frederick had sent to him, had dedicated to him. Papers drenched with passion, brimming with the memory of their love. Papers and a flute, which he could not bear anyone to see, lest they mock them and destroy them, and with them, the last remnants of his soul.

There were a few pieces of folded paper tucked under one part of the instrument. Gilbert carefully lifted the woodwind and extracted it.

The letter read as follows:

_"Dear Herr Beilschmidt,_

_I was very young when I first pestered my mother to give me flute lessons in Königsberg. I had seen in a patriotic picture book, that not only Alter Fritz, but also the Incarnation of our nation played the flute as well. And I was determined to be different from my siblings, to learn something other than piano or violin. So it was as a regimental band member that I marched off to the first great war. Afterwards, when I went home and married, the flute served mostly to entertain my children at our musical evenings. And when the second war came, it was one of the few things I took with me when we fled. I had the strange proclivity of imagining you by my side whenever I played it. In times of woe, you gave me strength. In times of joy, you were happy with me. About a decade ago, I somehow learned that you had not perished along with our Königsberg, but were alive, like me, here in the DDR. It was a great relief to me, to know that something far more important than this old body had also survived the war. Unfortunately, thoughts alone did nothing to keep my body strong, and I soon found myself here, in the hospital bed, waiting for my end. It had also occured to me that no one had said anything of your famous flute, given to you by the great King. Perhaps it had also perished, a victim of the war. So I came to the idea of bequeathing my flute to you, since no one in my family shares my passion for it. I know it cannot be more than a pitiful substitute for the original, but you need music in these times to comfort your soul. I hope you will use it, and remember that your people will always be with you when you play it._

_Yours most respectfully,_

_Wolfgang Bielawski"_

The girl glanced up briefly and glimpsed Gilbert's expression. She said nothing, only turned her gaze downward once more and continued sipping from her cup to stay warm. Once it was empty, she picked up the teapot and topped up Gilbert's mug before replenishing her own.

Eventually, he raised his head, folded the letter, and carefully closed the case.

"It is a pity your great-grandfather has already passed. I would have liked to thank him for the gift." His voice was careful, measured. He didn't want to hear it waver.

He stood up, rummaged in his pantry, and spooned out some of his house tea blend into a spare tin. "Here. Take this with my thanks. It's got peppermint in it so it's more of a morning drink. And...put a Kornblume on your grandfather's grave for me, when next you visit it. But only one."

"Thank you! And how did you...oh." The girl looked down. "You're from the same place as Opa, then."

"Yes. Now go, I'm sure you've got homework to do and you don't want to stay out too long and worry your mother."

Else shoved the tin in her schoolbag, then turned and looked straight at Gilbert. Without a single moment of hesitation, she sank into a perfect curtsey. Then she turned and left, the floor planks squeaking in her wake.

 

* * *

 

It took Gilbert at least a month to force himself to even bring the case out from where he'd secreted it under his bed. And another long month of staring at it, every night, before he had the courage to open it again.

Then several weeks of strenuous exercise, every day after work, before he mastered the fingering on the flute. It was a much more modern and streamlined incarnation of the instrument he'd grown to love so long ago, and certainly had its own share of idiosyncrasies.

One day while practicing, it suddenly occurred to him that he was satisfied with his current performance on the instrument. This was very disconcerting, because it meant he had no idea what to do next, other than continue to disturb the neighbours. Well, some of them, anyway. The ones directly downstairs from him were forever banging on the ceiling when he got too absorbed by a piece. But the young couple living next door to his right had shyly come up to him the other day while he was juggling his groceries and the apartment keys, and told him how much they loved to hear him play.

An idea took root in his mind as he remembered their happy faces. A silly idea. That was good. Silly ideas were very scarce in the Eastern Sector, because they generally weren't approved of. And that was even better.

When the weekend came, it found Gilbert standing on the platform at Lichtenberg station, waiting for the train. When it finally puffed and screeched its way to a stop, he was somehow quietly content to see that the steam locomotive at its head was one of the old Prussian models. 

It was a familiar journey he was going on. Years past, he'd become bored with the idea of spending his weekend in a drunken haze, and instead hopped on this very train and spent his day (and his money) on the palace grounds at Sanssouci. Just to sit under the trees, close his eyes and feel his land, his people, brought him more peace than any expensive Swiss shrink. The next weekend, he came again. And the weekend after that, the same, and so on, whenever he could.

As the cars of the train trundled their way out of the city, Gilbert carefully cradled the leather case on his lap and closed his eyes. It didn't matter that the windows closed against the coal smoke were making a sauna of the interior in the mild spring sunshine. It didn't matter that the one window open for ventilation was filling the air with black flecks anyway. It didn't matter that the seats were hard. He was going home.

At the entrance, he handed over the money for his ticket to the awkward youth at the booth. The boy, in his early twenties by his judgement, stared at the case he was carrying. "What's in there?"

"A flute." Gilbert opened it so he could inspect it.

"And what do you plan to do with it?"

The lad had beautiful touseled black hair, that even a regulation short haircut could not completely contain.

"Play it, of course. There is no more fitting place to play than here, after all."

"And why is that?"

Gilbert frowned. "The king who owned this complex played the flute himself, you know."

"Oh, I wasn't aware of that."

"Wasn't aware?" his scowl deepened. "You're working _here_ and you're _not aware_?"

The lad flushed, embarassed. "I only managed to get this job by chance. I'm very new to all of this." The youth's skin was pale hazelenut, and Gilbert wondered briefly how much his parents, his ancestors, had suffered for their appearance in the late war.

"In that case, I'd better come back later and explain a few things to you. When do you get off work?"

"At five, when the complex closes."

"Good, I'll be there at quarter to. See you then." Without further comment, the tall figure undid the buttons of his trenchcoat, and walked into a garden in spring.

Several feet past the gate, he briefly stopped and shouted over his shoulder: "And for your information, I have no intention of busking!"

Then he departed for the embracing shelter of his beloved trees, leaving behind a thoroughly flustered and confused ticket boy.

 

* * *

 

The few tourists wandering through the gardens were confused, at first, when they heard the sound of the flute through the greenery. But the melody was a happy one [insert one here?], and gradually, they followed its strains until they found the player.

Under a tree stood a man, his coat cast aside on a branch in the warm sunshine. He was pale, and wore round-rimmed nickel sunglasses and a blue turtleneck.

People came and went as he made music all through the afternoon, and he payed them no special heed. But as the shadows from the trees grew longer, and all other tourists had long since departed, Gilbert saw a pair of feet approach him from the corner of his eye.

He looked up, and saw it was the lad from the ticket booth. "Won't you get in trouble for leaving your post?"

"I expect I will," said the youth, flushing again. "But I couldn't resist coming over for a moment when you've been playing all afternoon. It was...so beautiful, even if I couldn't hear much."

"Thank you." Gilbert glanced at his watch, then sat down and began to disassemble the instrument. "It's just about time for me to come meet you anyway, so you've saved me a trip."

"Not really. I still need to go back and help with closing up. Wait- aren't you thirsty?"

The older man pointed to a large glass bottle under the branch that carried his coat. "I'm fine."

"Oh thank goodness! Anyway, I have to go now, but I'll see you at the exit!"

"I'll be waiting." Gilbert extracted a cloth from his pocket and began cleaning spittle from the inside of the instrument. Making music was so divine in some ways, and yet so vulgar in others.

He smiled quietly, remembering what Frederick had once said: "All pleasures are sublime and earthy all at once, it is impossible to separate the two." The smile broadened into a grin, as he remembered the position the king had been in when he'd said that.

Once he'd properly packed the flute, Gilbert quickly put on his coat and headed for the exit. Fifteen minutes after closing time, the youth emerged from the gate and saw him standing in the street, waiting.

The air was still warm, and for a while, both men strolled together along the quaint and verdant paths of the town, saying nothing at all.

Eventually, they found a bench to rest on near the Soviet Soldiers' Cemetery, and Gilbert cleared his throat and spoke.

"I tend to be somewhat intimidating in manner at times, without even realizing it, so I'm glad I didn't manage to scare you off."

"Well, I must admit you took me aback at first, but when I heard you playing, I said to myself- someone who can make such beautiful music is surely not a bad person. I'm Walter, by the way."

"Gilbert. I'm so glad you gave me the benefit of the doubt." He edged closer on the bench. "Now as promised, let me tell you Frederick's story."

"You mean the king, the second?"

"Who else? Now when Frederick was born, there was much rejoicing, since he'd already had two elder brothers who died while still in infancy..."

The last time Gilbert had lectured was at the General War School for officers in Berlin over a century ago. But even so, he found it remarkably easy to slip back into the professor's cant and diction, and tell the whole story of the man he'd loved so much, the man he still loved and probably always would.

The sky darkened as he told of how Frederick had suffered at his father's hands, and the air began to grow chilly. Walter edged closer to Gilbert for warmth.

"Another day, a sympathetic...servant of his fathers' had barely enough time to warn Frederick of his father's imminent approach, so that he could hide his flute and take himself off to his mother's quarters."

Gilbert remembered that moment well. He'd burst in to the Prince's rooms, shouting: "Move, boy! Your father's coming, hide the flute or you're fucked!"

Walter leaned his head against his neck. "You smell like sunscreen."

"Of course I do."

Gilbert lowered his sunglasses.

"I'm an _albino_ , you twit. Don't you know what that means?"

His eyes caught the last rays of the dying sun, blue like the heavens in the glass of a cathedral window.

Walter started back. "Oh," he said quietly.

"Don't be a scaredy cat now, I don't bite people and turn them into vampires." Gilbert stood up. "Come on, it's getting late, and we should have something to eat."

And so they walked into the night, and found a pub, and happily tucked into beer, a roast and potatoes with nary a care for their below-mediocre flavour. For the spice of companionship makes one forget all such niceties.

"So I was assigned to guard the Prince's quarters that night, and Katte was already in there by the time my watch began. As you may well guess, things got quite noisy fairly early on. No proper insulation in those palaces _at all_. At one point I could stand it no longer, so I opened the door, and looking straight ahead at the opposite wall for the sake of discretion, I said:  
'Katte, with all the instrument playing you're doing with Federic here these days, you'd better watch out you don't play too loudly and awake the slumbering Beast.' And you would not _believe_ how often I had to go and do that."

The tipsy Walter giggled. "You must be really drunk to talk about all this as though you were really there."

"...Oh yeah, I am definitely drunk enough."

Gilbert shook himself mentally. Forgetting to third-person his own memories after only two beers and a half? What was he coming to? 

"By the way," continued Walter, playing with a piece of gristle on his plate with his fork. "these two you keep talking about, Fritz and Katte. They must have been really good pals."

"Oh yes." The pale man leaned in. His hair was frosted piss-yellow by the low-wattage lighting, but somehow, that still didn't make him lose an inch of his charm. "The. Very. Best. Of. Friends," he whispered, sliding one hand down Walter's thigh.

"...Oh." The wan illumination still clearly showed Walter's cheeks as they changed colour.

Gilbert threw back his head and cackled. "My God, you're so precious, you know that?" His hand was still on the other man's leg, and Walter looked at his fingers nervously.

Gilbert discreetly removed his arm and raised it for another round of beer. "Now, as I was saying-"

It was much later that the two finally staggered out of the pub and into the night, waiting in a semi-dark station for the return train, Gilbert telling Frederick's tale all the while. Walter wept drunkenly on his shoulder when he spoke of Katte's death on the train, then fell asleep on his lap until they reached Lichtenberg station. Gilbert extracted a handkerchief and gently wiped his tears before waking him.

"Now, where's your apartment?"

They staggered on through the uneven callow streets, until they reached a building not altogether unlike Gilbert's current abode, and eventually collapsed, giggling incoherently, onto the fixed alcove seating that surrounded the dining table.

"So, tell me about yourself for a change," said Gilbert as Walter fetched them each another beer.

"God, not much to tell." Walter flipped the lids off with the opener and passed the other man his share.

"I was born the year after the war because my parents were so happy to see each other again after they got separated by various troubles. Went to school, did alright, but never really had interest in much. Tried a few trades, failed at all of them, and my mother finally managed to get me my current job through my aunt, who works for the parks and palaces administration."

"Why don't you go and study something? It's what people do these days I hear, short of joining the army."

Walter sat down next to him. "As I said, never really thought of that. Spent too much time being a disappointment to my parents to really think about how I could succeed at anything."

"Oh come now. Surely you're not a total failiure."

"Failed at cabinetry, failed at sheet-metal working, failed the shoe factory." Walter counted them off on his fingers. "It's gotten to the point that if my parents ever learnt of my biggest failing, they'd disown me for sure."

"So what's this gigantic failing of yours, then?" Gilbert leaned over and looked at his bench-companion gravely. "Couldn't be much worse than the littany you just gave me."

Walter took a giant swig of his bottle, sighed deeply, and said: "I like men."

"Do you now." Gilbert put down his beer and edged closer to him on the bench.

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah, I've known ever since that one crush I had on my teacher at school."

Gilbert cupped his face with his hand, contemplating him.

"Have you ever been with a man?" he asked quietly.

"No."

Gilbert leaned into him, half kneeling, half erect, one leg between Walter's legs.

"Then how can you be so sure? You know what they say- you never know until you try."

His eyes burned darkly in the wan illumination.

Their faces were barely an inch from each other now. In lieu of an answer, Walter bent forward and closed that gap with his mouth.

Gilbert leaned in further, craving more, his knee penetrating Walter's thighs. He slid into him, rubbed him, mouth and knee, harder each time. Walter fell from the edge of the bench but Gilbert caught him, flattened his back to the worn wallpaper.

Lips still fused to his, Gilbert ground his hips against him, and Walter felt the knot between his thighs dissolve into froth and foam.

Deft fingers made short work of Walter's shirt buttons, and Gilbert's mouth was everywhere on him, hard and fierce like the unceasing movement of his hips.

Walter reached out with his hands, grasped the top of Gilbert's collar, tried desperately to replicate his unerring skill in stripping a man.

Gilbert did not easily unveil his body these days.

The landscape of past pain that covered his flesh gave all too clear witness to his present duty as the sharp edge of the State.

"Please," he whispered as Walter fumbled his way down.

"Please don't hate what you see. I've been through a lot."

He shrugged out of the shirt as the last button fell to Walter's assault. 

The lad's mouth was open but he could not speak, could not utter a single word as Gilbert's hands reached down, undid both their trousers.

Before him stood an idol, the white stone of his skin split by pink inclusions that glowed from within, his eyes distant rubies.

There, the mass of scar tissue under his left breast- there, the many cuts that criscrossed his stomach, the jagged slash that crossed from chest to hip- too many to count. But all of them were luminous with lust, resplendent against his paleness.

"You're...amazing."

"What a kind boy you are." Gilbert reached out with one hand, inviting his approach. "Touch me," he whispered.

Walter extended one shaky hand to Gilbert's chest.

"No, not there, silly." Gilbert guided Walter's fingers onto the rosy nodule nestled between his thighs. Then he kissed him softly, hands enfolding his shoulders.

"I don't deserve you." Walter's shoulders shook with adrenaline, but his fingers remained firmly lodged between Gilbert's thighs, clinging to him.

"Don't be silly," Gilbert murmured into his neck. "We are here, together, right now. You are very pretty and I want to make you happy, because you deserve it. The only question is- do you want me?"

"Holy crap, do I ever. You're amazing." Walter clung to him and began to cry. "I never thought someone would make me feel this way."

"Shh. There's plenty of nice people in this world, just waiting to give you joy. I am merely delivering the opening stanzas."

He felt between his legs and touched Walter's hand. "Now give me more. Pretend you're at home looking at pictures of beautiful men, but do things to me instead of yourself."

Gently, Walter's fingers began to move. He rubbed carefully and delicately, and Gilbert had no qualm with the reverence of his movements. Better for a beginner to move softly than to injure with roughness.

He felt between Walter's legs and let his hands work at counterpoint to him, showering kisses on his neck, his mouth, his collarbone.

As their arousal grew Gilbert removed his hand from Walter, and gently displaced his lover's hand from him as well.

He leaned in further, playing with Walter's lips in his mouth as he rubbed against his hips, harder and thicker than before, pinning him to the drywall, hands clutching his buttocks, scars rippling as he moved. Walter wrapped his arms around Gilbert's back, closed his eyes and felt the world reduce to their friction, to the heat, the weight, the scent of him between his thighs.

Gilbert drove them on, working their knots of pure sensation as long as he dared, longer, and then yet longer again, until the warmth of Walter's release flooded between his thighs, and he glided on it, slick and easy with long strokes that grew shorter again as he ground against Walter's slippery cock, shaking with passion as his deluge foamed forth.

He kissed Walter copiously then, tongue sliding on his lips and teeth nipping their tenderness, cupped his face and smiled at the beauty of his lover.

They slid to the floor, and fell asleep right there, soft and replete in each other's arms.

Not for long, not for long-- Gilbert knew that in ten minutes, he'd arise and pull Walter up on shaky feet, and they'd take turns cleaning themselves at the kitchen sink and scrubbing the floorboards, then go piss in the bathroom behind the stairs.

But for now he'd lie there and thrill to the touch of a man's body, close his eyes and feel his innocent young thoughts against his skin.

 

* * *

 

When they parted at dawn, Gilbert belatedly remembered to ask Walter about his duty schedule. Every weekend he could after that, he played his flute and met him at the gate. Every afternoon, he would tell them all the ribald tales of Frederick that he could remember. And the nights were filled with beer and each other's warmth.

 

* * *

 

Spring turned to summer, and Walter was heading for their usual rendezvous spot on the park bench where they'd first lounged together. A loud whistle rang out as he passed the French Church, and he turned sharply and beheld none other than Gilbert, leaning nonchalantly against the base of the portico. His ubiquitous round sunglasses today served to accent an unusual, but seasonal outfit of a rumpled beige shirt with the first two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, and a well-cut pair of jeans.

"Aren't you attracting a bit too much attention?" Walter hissed as Gilbert fell in beside him. "Honestly, you could easily get arrested for wearing those trousers."

"They're called jeans," retorted Gilbert, who had willing paid a premium price to obtain them from a couple of part-time bootlegger teens.

"Also, the priest in charge of this magnificent edifice--" he looked up at the classical facade of the church, with its twin statues of Hope and Charity-- "...happens to be a good acquaintance of mine. And he doesn't consider jeans-wearing a sin worth reporting to temporal authorities."

He slung one arm about Walter's shoulder. "Now let me take you someplace different tonight, darling."

They took the train back to Berlin, sitting next to each other on one bench. The other passengers riding with them all got off at Genshagener Heide, and they had the car to themselves until Schönefeld Airport station.

Walter tried desperately not to look at the snow-white tufts that lay exposed between the open buttons of his companion's shirt, but in vain.

Gilbert smiled at his struggle, took Walter's hand and held it in front of his chest.

"Go ahead if you want. Touch me."

And Walter's hand dove between the open buttons of his companion's shirt, felt his soft hair, straddled his lover's lap and traced the pattern of scars on his breast and belly, found his nipples and caressed them in soft circles until they were rock hard.

Gilbert cupped his waist as Walter's fingers strayed down, undid the fly of his jeans, lowered both pants and underwear, extracted the contents of his thighs, which slipped easily into his palm. Gilbert fished a large handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to him, embracing him, holding him him steady as Walter moved his hand in his lap, stroking harder as the aging locomotive strained its way towards the next station. His fingers were eager in their rubbing and wet with Gilbert's desire. Walter made love to him with his hands and Gilbert wished it would never end, but of course it did, with a gloriously wet checked kerchief and his panting breaths caressing his lover's flushed and happy face. Walter fell back onto the bench, exhausted, while Gilbert used an untouched corner of the cloth to wipe himself. Then he balled the handkerchief up inside another one, and wedged it carefully inside his flute case for later disposal. (This wasn't the first time he'd executed such a manoeuvre.)

Walter gazed bemusedly at him as he made to pull up underwear and trousers. "You're so beautiful, you know that?"

"And you're quite the looker yourself."

By the time they pulled in to Schönefeld Airport Station and the doors to the carrige were wrenched open by tired people carrying peeling brown suitcases and dingy carpet bags, Gilbert and Walter had resumed their previous attitudes. But a faint smile of complicity and the proximity of their hands on the bench betrayed their closeness, though not to a degree that could be considered exceptional and worthy of surveilance.

"You know," remarked Walter as they got off the train and headed to the S-Bahn connexion. "you've been telling me stories of the past every time we've met, and I love the way you talk about history."

Gilbert laughed. "It's safer than speaking of the present."

"Oh come on, don't _say_ things like that. Anyway, it reminded me of how history schoolbooks were always so dreary and boring, and now I think I'd like to go to Uni after all, so I can study history and teach and write better books that maybe-- sound more like the way you talk."

A hand clapped him on the shoulder and he looked up to see Gilbert standing in front of him.

"To tell truth, I think you'd better not," he said quietly.

"What? Go to university?"

"No, be a professor."

"Why not? I've heard it's a decent profession--"

"Walter." The sadness in Gilbert's eyes was infinite. "The stories I tell are not approved for public consumption by the State." He tucked his arm around his friend and walked him up the stairs that led to the connecting platform. A train shrieked as it departed, and under cover of its noise, he spoke once more: "Being a gay professor and telling stories like that would make things...uncomfortable, for sure."

And Walter said nothing, but cast his eyes downward as they stood on the platform and waited.

Gilbert looked absently out the window of their train as it rattled on to their destination. In the reflection of the glass, he saw Walter's disappointed countenance as he sat in the bench opposite him.

He cleared his throat.

"You may not be aware, but there is...a need for workers in the Central Archives at Potzdam. Were you to become certified for such a position through your studies, I would...do what I could to find a placement for you."

Wordlessly, Walter stood up and let himself down next to Gilbert. Reaching out, his brown hand squeezed the other's pale fingers, briefly and tightly, before letting go once more.

**Author's Note:**

> My blog [is right here](https://modoru-mono.tumblr.com/). I mostly post history and archaeology with a smattering of good Hetalia. Feel free to give me a yell on ask or messenger over there if you enjoyed the fic!
> 
> **NOTES:**
> 
> **Soviet Soldiers' Cemetery:** [It's still there](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassinplatz), facing the French Church in Potsdam.
> 
>  **With its twin statues of Hope and Charity:** The sculptor of these statues, Friedrich Christian Glume, was also responsible for many of the facade sculptures at Sanssouci. Gilbert is therefore understandably attached to these ones by association.
> 
>  **"the steam locomotive at its head was one of the old Prussian models":** Like this one [here](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preu%C3%9Fische_P_8).
> 
>  **"they had the car to themselves until Schönefeld Airport station":** [Map](https://web.archive.org/web/20110728041540/http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/Netz_1966_klein.gif) for your convenience.


End file.
